


Making Magic

by icepixie



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crack, Crossover, Gen, Humor, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-06-01
Updated: 2003-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-03 15:29:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icepixie/pseuds/icepixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So how <em>does</em> Sam work all those miracles?  (This is an HP crossover only in the loosest sense of the word, but some background knowledge might be useful.  Spoilers for "Point of View"; it's set mid-S3.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making Magic

Paperwork was *boring*, Jack proclaimed to himself for probably the ten thousandth time since he'd joined the Air Force. Whoever had come up with the idea of "in triplicate" had a very special circle of hell reserved just for him or her.

As he usually did when he was bored, Jack decided to go bug his 2IC. He got to fiddle with expensive doohickeys, see her smile at his terrible jokes, and make her take a break for at least long enough to snatch the latest doohickey out of his hands. It was a win-win situation for everyone.

With that thought in mind, he made his way, whistling softly, from his office to Carter's lab. The door was shut, and he gave a perfunctory rap on the metal with his knuckles before immediately moving his hand and opening the door. There was little chance that he would be interrupting something he shouldn't, and besides, half the time she was so caught up in her latest experiment that someone knocking at the door didn't even register.

Jack stepped over the threshold and glanced around the room for the Major. He found her at the back of the lab, turned mostly away from the door, standing in front of a table that had...something...in pieces spread over the top of it.

Sam was holding a smooth, gleaming, unusually-straight stick, about a foot in length, in her right hand. With a look of intense concentration on her face, she waved it at the broken-looking thing on the table and said, "_Reparo_!"

To Jack's surprise, the metal pieces on the table began to assemble themselves into something whole. He still had no clue what it was, but now it looked like a mysterious piece of alien technology, instead of just...bits.

Once the...thingy...was fully assembled, Sam gave a satisfied smile. Jack decided that now was the time to ask questions. "Uh, Carter?"

With an audible gasp, she whirled around to face him, dropping her stick in the process. Seeing the horrified look covering her face, Jack thought that it might have been better if he had waited for her to answer his knock.

"Sir!" Sam exclaimed, looking for all the world like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "What are you doing here?"

"Wondering what the hell that just was." He indicated the...whatever...on the table.

Sam apparently had decided that she was a guppy. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out of it. He was about to ask if she was all right when he saw a light go on in her eyes, and her whole body straighten. She plastered her patented "I'm a scientist and I know what I'm talking about" look on her face and said, "This is a piece of technology that SG-5 picked up on PX7-112. The wa--um, this thing," she reached down and picked up the stick, "acts like a remote to assemble and disassemble it. I haven't figured out why that would be necessary yet, but I'm working on it." She smiled brightly.

Jack let her words hang in the air for a moment before nodding slowly. "Riiiight," he drawled. "Carter, you're a horrible liar, you know that?" He crossed the lab to her position.

Sam attempted to look indignant. "Sir, I'm..." she trailed off at his disbelieving expression. Crestfallen, she stared at the toes of her boots. "Okay. The...thing...on the table is something that SG-5 brought back. This," she held up the stick with a glimmer of pride, "is mine."

He raised an eyebrow when she didn't continue. "And it is...?" He expected that she would say a long word that he wouldn't understand, that it would be some complicated, expensive, cutting-edge technology that she'd begged and pleaded with General Hammond to get.

"My wand."

Okay, of all the things he thought she might say, that definitely wasn't even near the list, much less on it. "As in _magic_ wand?"

Sam nodded. "Eleven inches, made of oak with a dragon heartstring core."

Jack waited for her to smile, or giggle, or yell, "Gotcha!" Anything to prove that this was all a big joke. When she continued to look utterly serious, he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I think I liked the earlier explanation better."

He knew she was smiling, but for once he didn't feel like joining her. Did this mean that his 2IC had finally cracked? But it *had* looked like the waving of the wand and that word--repora, or something--had made the...doohickey...on the table assemble itself.

Jack opened his eyes and let his hand fall to his side. "Sam, do you feel okay?"

She looked confused for a brief moment before her expression cleared in understanding. "Colonel, I'm not going crazy," Sam laughed. "I'm a witch. Look, I'll prove it." She waved her wand in the direction of a pencil lying on the same table as the alien...thingamabob...and said, "_Wingardium leviosa_!"

In front of Jack's astonished eyes, the pencil rose about a foot off the surface of the table and started writing something in midair. For a long moment, he stood gaping at the sight. "Holy hell," he breathed. He tore his gaze from the floating pencil to look at Sam, who was trying hard not to gloat.

Sam waved her wand again and murmured a counter-charm, letting the pencil fall back to the table with hardly a sound. "Satisfied?"

Jack nodded. He thought it good that he could move at all after what he'd just seen. All right, transport rings and zat guns and even the Stargate itself were all very weird and very Star Trek, but unless Carter was hiding something very, very big from him, *this* was real magic, not just sufficiently advanced technology looking like magic, or however the old adage went.

"How?" Jack finally asked.

"Well, the physics of it haven't been completely worked out yet, and the genetic predisposition for magical talent hasn't..." Sam trailed off at her CO's pained look. Right. She should've known he wasn't asking *that* "how." "My great-great grandmother was a witch, and the talent passed down to me. I went to school in England for seven years at a place called--don't laugh--" she narrowed her eyebrows and pointed an index finger accusingly at him, "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Jack couldn't help the snicker that escaped. He really couldn't. Not even when he thought about the fact that it was entirely possible for his major to turn him into a toad for his impertinence. He immediately held his hands up in surrender, begging her with body language not to do anything nasty to him.

Sam forgave him, as he knew she would. "I learned how to control my magic there. I had a really excellent Transfiguration teacher...Professor McGonagall and I still keep in touch." She paused in reminiscence for a moment. "Anyway, that's how."

It was surprising how easy it was for him to accept this new revelation about Carter, Jack thought. Then again, he'd spent the past three years considering her a miracle-worker already, so this wasn't that big of a change, really.

"England, huh?" Sam nodded. "Is that why you have a funny accent on some words?"

Okay, that was so not first on her list of questions she expected him to ask. "No, it's because I'm really a Canadian." She waited a moment for the words to sink in, for him to become well and truly befuddled... "Of _course_ that's why, sir." She gave him a smug grin that all but screamed "gotcha!"

Jack spared her a sour glare. Sam was completely unaffected by it. Her heart felt lighter now that the constant weight of keeping her secret from everyone at the SGC had been lifted a bit. "So is this how you work all those miracles?"

Sam quirked a smile and ducked her head for a moment. "Not really. It's not particularly useful for figuring out how alien technology works. Besides, I spent most of my last three years studying physics on my own rather than magic. Mostly I use it to put things back together," she nodded at the...whatchamacallit...on the table, "and do little things. I never clean my lab equipment--or my house, for that matter--by hand." At that, she flicked her wand in the direction of a microscope and muttered something else that sounded vaguely Latin. A cloth that hadn't been there before began to clean the instrument. Sam grinned at her CO's astonished expression.

"So, Sam," he finally said, not taking his eyes off the magic washcloth, "were you planning on telling anyone about this little hobby of yours oh, *ever*?"

Her grin faltered. "Uh, no, sir. I'm not allowed, actually. The only reason I'm not about to be pulled up on all sorts of charges is because I'm going to perform a memory charm to make you forget this whole conversation ever happened."

"_Whaaat_?" She might have been his 2IC, and she might have been damn cute, standing there with a wand (which she was using absently to make the cleaning rag disappear) in her hand, her face a little scrunched up as if she were about to twitch her nose like Samantha on *Bewitched*--and oh, Jacob, that was *very* cute, that little in-joke in naming your daughter, haha--but there was so NO WAY that she was messing with his mind. "I don't think so, Major."

She seemed genuinely apologetic. "I'm sorry, sir, but I have to. The only Muggles--um, non-wizards--allowed to know of the wizarding world's existence are relatives and spouses of magical people." They both paused uncomfortably at that, remembering the recent appearance of one alternate reality Doctor Carter, who had been married, and whose husband--who had just happened to be Jack O'Neill--had undoubtedly known about her "hobby."

Deciding that that was far too weird to dwell on, Jack said, "Carter, there is no way I'm letting you mess with my memory."

"Sir, I have to," she repeated. "You don't even want to think about all the paperwork I would have to fill out if I didn't."

"Ah-ha. See? How can I let you wipe this from my memory? Then I won't know to bribe you with Jello in order to get you to magic away my paperwork!" His tone was light, but underneath he was still quite serious. There was no way she was going to do this.

Sam smiled at the joke. "Really, sir, this is nothing serious. You'll just think that you've been in here fiddling with my instruments and talking with me about nothing particularly consequential. And if there's ever a reason for it to be removed, it'll be simple." She paused again at that, considering the implications of that phrase in light of her earlier words about who could and couldn't know about magic. From the sharp intake of breath she heard, she knew O'Neill had understood the same implication.

"You're still not doing this. I can order you not to do this," Jack finally said.

"Colonel--" Sam realized that justifying herself was going to take more time than she had. "I'm sorry, sir." With that, she cast the memory charm, quickly slipping her wand into a convenient cup full of pencils while her CO blinked, wondering why he felt a little funny.

"Carter?"

"Yes, sir?" Sam replied, looking up from the alien...object...on the table, looking every inch the normal human.

"Did you just feel...never mind." He shook his head and picked up the pencil that he now couldn't remember levitating only a few minutes ago. "So what is that...thing there?" He pointed at the piece of alien technology on the table.

Sam considered the question, staring at the object. "To be honest, sir...I have no idea."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Gone With the Wand (The Remix Of Which We Shall Never Speak Again)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/100249) by [Gray Cardinal (Gray_Cardinal)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Cardinal/pseuds/Gray%20Cardinal)




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